The Countess Confessions

by Jillian Hunter

  “Always. How dull my life would be without your frequent sins to forgive. And now I’m going to lose you.”

  “I won’t go that far away, Lucy. We can visit each other, can’t we?”

  Lucy sniffed. “There will never be anyone like you, Emily.”

  Emily took Lucy’s hand. She should have apologized more, but all of a sudden a row of vehicles appeared in the drive. Lady Fletcher’s phaeton was one of the first to arrive. Lucy gasped.

  “I forgot to tell you,” Lucy said behind her fan.” My father is bringing Lord Ardbury along for tea.”

  Emily swallowed over the tightness in her throat. “Does Damien know?”

  “I assume so. Don’t be alarmed if Ardbury asks everyone whether they’ve encountered any gypsies in the area, or are missing any valuables.”

  “Gypsies?” Emily said, then she nodded in understanding. “I haven’t seen any in months.”

  “Apparently everyone is convinced that they robbed us last night at the party,” Lucy said. “Diana is ever so convincing. I almost believed her myself.”

  “I didn’t realize that there were gypsies at the party,” Emily said, slowly strolling forward. “Did you notice any?”

  “Oh yes. There was that fortune-teller’s tent by the brook.”

  Emily stared straight ahead, her heartbeat accelerating. “Did you visit it?”

  “Of course. She couldn’t give me a good reading. The wind blew down the tent.”

  They glanced up together as the gentlemen who assembled on the steps moved as one into the house. Damien paused. For a moment Emily thought he was about to turn in her direction. Her heart hammered in expectation. But at the same instant, Lady Fletcher and four other matrons emerged from the garden and veered toward the bench that sat beside the stone entrance steps.

  “Nothing was really stolen from your house?” Emily whispered to Lucy, relieved and yet disappointed at her reprieve. It was only a matter of minutes before she had to face the rogue and put on a performance to convince everyone he was the love of her life. Somehow she thought it would not be as difficult as she’d feared.

  “Diana hid a few things to cover for you,” Lucy said softly.

  “To make me appear to be a house robber? Thank her for me.”

  “She did it for us, Emily.”

  “The gentlemen have abandoned us for their somber conversation,” Lady Fletcher said, as Emily and her stepdaughter approached the ladies seated before them.

  “Is anything wrong in the village?” Emily asked in an appropriately distressed voice.

  “Only that you have been deceiving us with your delicious secret, Emily.” Lady Fletcher glanced meaningfully at the house. “Wherever did you find him, and how did you manage to keep him to yourself for this long?”

  Chapter 22

  Damien stared straight ahead as the baron led him and a small group of gentlemen through the hall toward the drawing room. He hoped to appear appropriately concerned over the vicar’s warning that a brazen theft at a ball should not be allowed to go unpunished, and that heathens would be murdering innocent citizens in their sleep, the next Hatherwood knew.

  He had not been able to keep his eyes from Emily when he spotted her in the garden. He’d stared at her lush figure and fair skin, the copper-red hair drawn back on her neck. She was not the same woman who’d caused so much mayhem the evening before last. This demure young lady looked capable of ruining a man’s life.

  But she hadn’t trapped the young man she wanted. Damien was the prey she had caught in her web of deceit.

  She had stolen several glances in his direction, hesitating to meet his eyes. When she had, he’d been torn between beating a retreat and striding across the grass to take her in his arms. It was easier to act besotted with her than he’d anticipated. The challenge was in not overplaying their attraction to each other.

  He smiled inwardly, wondering what she was thinking. And if he met her approval.

  • • •

  Emily swallowed and tried to compose herself as she settled in her chair. Now the courtship began. The town of Hatherwood was about to meet her suitor. And, apparently, so was she.

  She wouldn’t have recognized him as Sir Angus when he entered the drawing room. His dark elegance stopped conversation between the vicar and her father. The vicar’s wife stared at the earl and then at Emily, not hiding her astonishment that they would soon marry.

  She wasn’t half as astonished as Emily.

  Damien’s face, shaved clean to reveal a square jaw and chiseled cheekbones, left her momentarily speechless. Without his beard, he intimidated her in a different way than he had as Sir Angus. His blue eyes, still intense, held hers in amusement.

  The guests could forgive him for looking at his fiancée with pleasure.

  Emily knew that they would not forgive his thoughts. Nor should she.

  He walked toward her chair, uncaring that the entire room watched him in anticipation. The vicar often came for tea. But today he appeared to have brought the entire parish with him.

  “I trust you slept well, my dear,” Damien said as he reached her side. His low, mellifluous voice bore no hint of Scotland at all. It managed to penetrate her composure nonetheless.

  “I slept like a baby,” she lied.

  “Did you?” The skepticism in his voice revealed that he didn’t believe her for a moment.

  She glanced up at his shoulders. He was built well enough to make any lady’s heart race when he approached her. His lean, muscular torso didn’t need padding. Even if—

  “You aren’t half the man you were when we met,” she whispered, hoping to unnerve him.

  He laughed quietly to let her know she had failed. “I hope you don’t miss our friend Angus. He’s gone and is never coming back. He wasn’t much of a lady’s man, anyway.”

  She twirled a lock of her hair around a white-gloved finger. “And you are?”

  “That depends on the lady. You’ll have to wait to find out. Are you impatient?”

  Her voice caught. “For the wedding?”

  “It’s a good thing,” he said, glancing up at a passing guest, “that I didn’t see through your disguise right away.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I’ve discovered recently that I have an obsession for red hair.”

  “Yours or mine?”

  He grinned. “Do you prefer Sir Angus to me?”

  “I did let him kiss me.”

  “That’s true.” He frowned, his heated gaze drifting to the curl she dropped to her décolletage. “I’ll have to take that as a challenge.”

  She swallowed. “I did think your shoulders looked lopsided when we rode through the woods.”

  His mouth curved. “Are they more pleasing to you now?”

  She felt a blush wash across her cheeks. “A lady doesn’t admire a man’s physique in public.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll have plenty of private moments to admire each other.”

  “Sit down, my lord,” the vicar said. “It’s time for tea. You’ll have years for your betrothed after the wedding.”

  Damien bent his head close to hers. His cheek bore the scent of sandalwood soap. “Behave as you normally would,” he murmured, taking the empty chair adjacent to hers.

  “I’ve never been in this position before,” she murmured as she rose beside the tea table and proceeded to fill his cup until the hot brew cascaded over the rim. “Oh, dash. I am all thumbs today.”

  Lady Fletcher leaned over the table, lifting the dripping saucer to the footman at her side.

  “Have you decided whether you will honeymoon or settle down immediately on your estate, Lord Shalcross?” Lucy asked in a bid to draw attention from the dripping saucer.

  Damien leaned against the arm of his chair. “I would prefer to live in the country, but I haven’t begun to look for a house. My wife will have a say in the matter.”

  Envious stares and endless questions were directed at Emily from the parish ladies, who cou
ld not believe that the baron’s gauche daughter could land an earl when she’d never even attended finishing school. Emily was likely the only person in the room who knew that a school didn’t exist that could prepare her for this earl.

  Suffice it to say, he made a stir by answering a barrage of questions with a smile or two and several vague replies. By the time a fresh tray of pastries and lemon cake arrived, Emily wished she had laced everyone’s tea with gin.

  Someone had returned to the subject of the jewel theft at Lord Fletcher’s party. “And to think the vagabonds disappeared without a trace,” Lady Fletcher said. “My husband had the woods around the house searched, and all that was found was a card. I’ll never see those jewels again.”

  Probably because most of them had never existed in the first place, Emily thought, not knowing how to react. Fortunately, Damien took the initiative. “Ladies and gentlemen, shall we walk through the garden before another storm ruins the day?”

  Emily followed the party outside. How could Damien appear so collected? Her heart was thudding against her breast. But, then, who else knew that his outward urbanity concealed a dedicated agent?

  “Pay attention,” he said quietly, giving her his forearm.

  She blinked, pulled from her daydream. Pay attention to what? If she paid any closer attention to him, she’d melt into a puddle.

  He had led the party out onto the front steps. Tiny spears of sunlight poked through a gathering bank of clouds. All at once she felt Damien tense.

  “Do not panic,” he said under his breath, which naturally made her heart thud all the harder.

  Her father brushed around them, mumbling his apologies. “Some late arrivals, my lord. You must excuse our rustic ways. An earl taking a local lady to wife is an event that will be long remembered in Hatherwood history.”

  Emily sighed. She assumed that their impending marriage would be an event that Damien wished he could forget. But then on the front steps he murmured, “Darling, you’ve dropped one of your gloves.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  He made a discreet motion, tugging the glove from her fingers until it fell at her feet. “Oh, really,” she muttered, bending to rescue it, only to realize he had dropped the glove as a ruse to lean over her.

  “Remain calm,” he said. “Act as if this were any other day. That is Lord Ardbury walking up the drive with Fletcher. You are to behave as if he were any other stranger who came to tea to make your acquaintance.”

  “Except that he wants to kill me. That does not make him like most other strangers.”

  “True. You will have to put on a convincing performance. We both know you’re capable of it. I heard you giving readings in the tent.”

  “Listening to a professional consultation? Have you no shame?”

  “Eavesdropping is part of my profession.”

  “Why eavesdrop on me? I’m not a professional anything.”

  “Perhaps I had an inkling that you would become a person essential to Crown security. Perhaps I liked the sound of your voice.” His eyes narrowed in good nature. “I haven’t decided whether I can trust you yet.”

  “Lord Shalcross,” her father said behind them. “Two gentlemen have just arrived who would like to meet you.”

  How the earl could straighten and look Lord Ardbury in the face as coolly as he did amazed Emily. Damien did not betray by his voice or mannerisms that he had been Sir Angus Morpeth, anarchist and enemy of the Crown.

  Emily was anything but cool. Her mouth went dry. Her knees shook, and she suspected she had a guilty-as-charged look on her face that was impossible to conceal. And when Lord Ardbury brought up the subject of the missing jewelry, she excused herself from the conversation and promised she would be right back.

  There were only a few activities in her normal routine certain to calm her down. A sequester in the library was one of them.

  • • •

  In the clatter and conversation and clinking of glasses in the billiards room, Damien could easily step outside and not be missed. It wouldn’t be unusual for a betrothed couple to become separated from the party to steal a few moments alone.

  Emily wasn’t what he would call helpless. She’d acted with enough audacity to stage a plot that had deceived even Damien on the night he had walked into her tent.

  She had gone to great lengths to attract the man she desired. Damien had inserted himself in number seven’s place with no thought to the damage he would inflict on either party or on himself.

  He roused himself at the sound of Lord Ardbury’s voice. “I have business matters that require I leave for London this afternoon. Before I go, I urge you to apprehend this gypsy before she commits other crimes. I brought this sketch so that you can be on the lookout. We cannot allow lawless persons like her to victimize innocent citizens.”

  He produced from a portfolio a poor sketch of Emily disguised as the fortune-teller Urania. “Pass this to each man at the table,” he instructed the footman who was standing in a trance at the sideboard.

  “Never saw her in my life.”

  “I’d not forget a face like that, gypsy or not.”

  The sketch came to Damien. He considered it carefully, recognizing the revised work of the journalist who worked for Ardbury. Apparently the artist had not received an accurate description from the guests who visited the fortune-telling tent, because Mr. Dinsmore had given Urania eyebrows like arched caterpillars and a tiny mole on her left shoulder.

  Or had she worn a false patch last night? Damien had been so startled when she’d discarded her wig that a little beauty mark could have easily escaped his notice.

  “Does she look familiar?” Lord Ardbury asked, clearly noticing Damien’s interest in the sketch.

  “Not in the slightest,” he said in a bored voice, passing the paper to the gentleman standing across from him.

  His heart thumped against his ribs. Damn it to hell. He had been studying Emily all morning. Had her shoulders been covered by her dress, or had she been wearing a shawl? One slip and her shoulder, marked or not, would draw any red-blooded male’s attention. The dream he’d had of her still tantalized him, but then, merely watching her play with her hair had stirred a relentless agony in him that was all too real.

  He needed to warn her before she and Lord Ardbury came face-to-face. Although Ardbury was more engrossed in politics and power than in womanizing, he was not likely to overlook a detail as distinct as Emily’s mark. Nor would her father, who had just been handed the sketch to examine.

  The baron knew only part of what his daughter had done the night of the party. He had witnessed her dramatic removal of the wig. Surely he knew whether Emily had a mole on her shoulder or not. Would he inadvertently reveal who she was by his reaction to the sketch?

  To Damien’s relief, the baron gave the drawing a cursory glance, muttering, “They all look alike to me—thieves and vagabonds. The gypsies know to avoid this estate. They’ll find no sympathy here.”

  At that moment another man entered the room. He was tall and properly dressed in a frock coat and light trousers, his black hair cropped short. Damien did not recognize him at first until he said, “I’m sorry to have missed the tea. I was up with a sick horse all night. What have you done with the ladies?” He grinned at Damien. “Lovers’ spat already?”

  Damien relaxed. Michael looked more like an English scholar than a half-blooded Rom. His devil-may-care demeanor dispelled the tension that had been gathering in the room.

  “Thank you for reminding me that I have neglected my fiancée for too long,” Damien said. “Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure making your acquaintance. I hope to meet you again. May your jewels remain safe until then.”

  He bowed as cheers and good wishes for the wedding accompanied him to the door. Several men in the room stated they would leave now, too. Once in the hall, Damien quickened his stride. In his haste he nearly collided with Emily’s maid, who backed away from him as if he were the grim reaper come to collect her soul.
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  “Is something wrong, my lord?” she said, giving him a harsh scrutiny. “Are you leaving the house, or the village perhaps?”

  “I regret to disappoint you, but I am here to stay until the wedding.” He paused at the relief he saw in her eyes. “If it doesn’t offend you, I would like to make a personal inquiry about Miss Rowland, and you have likely seen her undressed more often than anyone else.”

  “My lord!” she said, shocked. “How dare you ask such a question.”

  “I dare because it could—oh, never mind. I’ll find out myself the traditional way.”

  He wanted another look at Emily in the daylight, anyway. He wanted to study the ingenuous miss who would become his wife when he had loved only one other woman in his life. If he was going to exchange vows with Emily, he might as well learn the symmetry of her face, her preferences, her favorite pastimes, as she would learn his.

  Still, for the life of him he could think of only one pastime whenever he looked at her. Was there anything wrong in longing to possess the woman he was to marry? They were going to be together perhaps forever. How could he not look forward to their intimate life?

  No one would think it remiss of him to feign infatuation with his bride-to-be. But if he overplayed the role, Lord Ardbury would notice, and something, perhaps the sight of Emily standing beside Damien, might prompt suspicion.

  In the event that Lord Ardbury realized the truth, Damien would not hesitate to wrestle the traitor to the ground and hold him there until the authorities could arrive. Despite having successfully having tricked several people, Emily had placed herself in peril. Damien could only hope she could remain levelheaded enough to throw Ardbury off her track.

  Curse the winds of fortune. Had a man and woman ever been tossed together at worse time, in a worse place, or for a worse reason?

  Chapter 23

  Emily had taken shelter in the library, assuming her absence would go unnoticed, as it often had in the past. She might have guessed that Damien would pursue her. Now he had cornered her with her back to the door. There was no escaping him today. Nor after the wedding. Would he always be this attentive?